Ryan prefers cuts before disaster aid is doled out

Wednesday

Aug 29, 2012 at 12:01 AMAug 29, 2012 at 11:35 AM

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Hurricane Isaac bears down on the Gulf Coast, there should be plenty of money — some $1.5 billion — in federal disaster aid coffers, thanks, in part, to a new system that budgets help for victims of hurricanes, tornadoes and floods before they occur.

It's a system Paul Ryan, the Republican nominee-to-be for vice president, had hoped to scrap as a way to make his House GOP budget look smaller by about $10 billion a year. Politely, party elders told him no way, at least for now.

Capitol Hill Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana were the driving force behind the new disaster funding scheme and made it part of last summer's hard-fought budget pact with backing from President Barack Obama. Before that, the president had given short shrift to budgeting for disasters before a spate of them early last year, including tornadoes that ripped through Missouri and Alabama.

Congresses and administrations, after all, always had been fairly forthcoming with whatever disaster aid was needed after the fact, though the rise to power of tea party Republicans contributed to delays in providing disaster money last year.

The new system means disaster aid will not have to compete with other programs for financing, nor have to rely on less-certain ad hoc funding at the height of a crisis. Instead, disaster money was added on top of the official budget "cap" in line with the amounts budgeted in prior years.

It had been a different story earlier in the year as the government's chief disaster fund almost ran dry, thanks to foot-dragging by the White House and demands by tea party House Republicans that disaster aid be partly "paid for" with cuts to programs Obama favored.

Months after agreeing to the new program, Republican leaders still had to use procedural maneuvers to pass $8.8 billion in disaster money over the opposition of tea party lawmakers to keep the agreement. Ryan, the House Budget Committee's chairman, was among 66 Republicans opposing the measure.

"Some Republicans are still fighting this," Landrieu said in an interview yesterday. "And it is kind of ironic that the storm was at some point headed towards Tampa during their convention. That would have been the irony of all ironies for this storm to hit Tampa when the Republicans were the ones saying 'we need to find offsets' " for disaster aid.

However, Ryan's point of view might still prevail if Mitt Romney defeats Obama in November.

What Ryan proposes is that when disaster strikes, lawmakers scour the rest of the budget for savings to pay for rebuilding homes, roads and schools and helping small businesses.

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